Tuesday, 31 July 2012

The God Of Low Standards

The God of Low Standards is a utility god. It can be whatever its followers want it to be and it can excuse anything its followers want it to excuse. It's a tailor-made god, perfectly fitted for its followers needs and infinitely adaptable for any purpose.

You find it in the Kalam Cosmological Argument where everything must have had a beginning and nothing can happen without a cause but The God of Low Standards doesn't have a beginning, so doesn't need a cause.

You find it in the Teleological Argument where the God of Low Standards can be defined into existence by humans and becomes real by fiat.

You find it in the Ontological Argument where any gap, real or imaginary, can be filled by the God of Low Standards with no evidence at all.

You find the God of Low Standards in holy books where writing about it is enough to make it real, unlike science where hundreds of books full of evidence are never enough.

You see it in the demand that science explain how everything can come from nothing. Followers of the God of Low Standards say their god should be exempt.

You see it in the demand for proof that a god doesn't exist by people who don't believe in fairies but can't prove they don't exist either. The God of Low Standards needs a lower standard than fairies.

You see it in the demand that science provide fossil evidence for every single generation of every single species to prove evolution happened, while the God of Low Standards needs no evidence at all.

You see it in the demand for answers and the refusal to look at them. The God of Low Standards needs its followers to ignore facts and pretend they aren't there.

You see it in the resort to lies and abuse. The God of Low Standards requires its followers to abandon personal integrity and defend it with hypocrisy.

You see it in the use of tactics and sophistry in place of facts and reason. The God of Low Standards needs to find a way round evidence.

You see it in the claim that 'faith' is superior to evidence for the God of Low Standards but science must provide an impossible standard of evidence.

You see it in the insistence that a god must exist because it meets people's requirements yet science is wrong when it provided inconvenient facts. The God of Low Standards can be whatever its followers say it is.

Followers of the God of Low Standards need to try to make us fell ashamed for asking them questions they can't answer and asking them for evidence they don't have.

Followers of the God of Low Standards need to try to ban criticism and disagreement.

The God of Low Standards can be used as an excuse for hate; as an excuse for repression; as an excuse for claiming authority instead of having to earn the right to it; as an excuse for theft; as an excuse for abuse; as an excuse for jingoistic nationalism; as an excuse for misogyny; as an excuse for racism; as an excuse for claiming moral superiority; as an excuse to kill; as an excuse to persecute; as an excuse to cheat vulnerable people.

The only thing the God of Low Standards can't do it provide a single piece of evidence for its own existence - which is why its followers need such low standards in the first place.

15 comments
:

You really believe in God even though you don't seem to realise that you do. You see your God is science.Of course science leads back to the Master Planner-God.God has given us all free will. He has given us the Ten Commandments. Now if all humans (Christians and non Christians alike) abided by the Ten Commandments we would have a peaceful earth. So you see HE is a God of high standards. It is us humans who have low standards when we sin

1) Science is not our god. We do not worship it, nor do we believe in it without evidence (which, of course, is the most common definition of the word "faith").

2) You can call god the master planner if you want to, but please answer the following questions for me: a) Did he plan the exquisitely complex lifecycle of malaria parasite which kills millions of people each year? b) Did he plan the broken vitamin C gene in humans and the apes most closely related to them, even though the gene is intact in other mammals? c) What evidence do you provide that this god even exists? After all, you did say that science points back to the master planner; show me the evidence, and I'll believe you. d) Even if you could prove that a god exists, how do you know that the god you've chosen is the right one? From your comments I presume you abjectly kowtow to the christian god--but maybe the real master planner god is Allah, Zeus, or Maki-Maki. What experiment do you propose to distinguish between them? Or what evidence do you offer?

3) Your comment on everyone abiding by the 10 commandments proves nothing about the existence of your god. We would also have a peaceful world if everyone abided by Kant's categorical imperative--was Kant god? We'd have a peaceful world if everyone abided by the moral systems set down by the best of the atheist philosophers--does that prove that god does not exist? What about Gandhi? Your argument is a combination of fuzzy thinking and the logical fallacy of appealing to the consequences.

4) As Rosa indicated, your god actually has very low standards (except when it comes to not mixing different types of fabrics in the same garment, of course); the morality in the bible is perverse to the point of creepiness, with the exception of a few cherry-picked nice passages. Big deal; I could do the same with the koran. In fact, my own moral standards are higher than those of the god of the bible; for example, I have never once commanded my own favored ethnic group to exterminate another group, nor have I ever endorsed slavery.

>You really believe in God even though you don't seem to realise that you do.

An object lesson in how the God of Low Standards requires its supporters to pluck 'facts' out of thin air to handle the inevitable cognitive dissonance which comes from desperately wanting to believe the absurd and having to make do with no evidence at all.

Normal people call that 'living in a fantasy world'. It's a form of psychosis of course.

Also illustrates how the God of Low Standards requires its followers to be hypocritical and bear false witness because they have no evidence with which to back up their belief in it. You do not know my mind and to implicitly claim you do is, as you know, a lie.

Go to this website: Eucharistic Miracles. Here you find proof that the host is converted into Our Lords body and blood at the Consecration. Take particular notice of this page Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano Note the scientific investigation. Note the findings. These miracles prove that there is a God. Note the findings of the scientists.

Thank you for posting these examples of human credulity and stupid gullibility. It just shows what people are capable of, especially when, like you, they need a God of Low Standards to help them feel better about themselves when they can't be bothered with learning and study and are looking for a short-cut to knowledge, or simply want an excuse to pretend to be as knowledgeable as those who actually bother with learning.

I gather the refutations of all these are available at P.Z.Myer's Blog, but I expect you'll be too afraid of reading these because that would mean raising your standards too far for the God of Low Standards which requires its followers to remain ignorant and to abandon logical thinking, reason and honesty in order to get down to its level.

Too silly for words. Here's a refutation of every pseudo-miracle on your site, along with every other one anywhere at any time:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/24/the-great-desecration/

Now, while you're at it, please explain why some god would cause a cracker to remain unmoldy for 250 years, but not prevent a shooting in Colorado or a tsunami in southeast Asia? Your god's miracles are, to quote a certain recent blog post, of a very low standard.

Re shooting in Colorado. God has given us humans free will. Depending on how we use it we will end up in Heaven or Hell. If you show your love for God by keeping his Ten Commandments and by repenting of your sins you go to Heaven. If you die in mortal sin you go to Hell. The Eucharistic Miracles stand the test of time.Just to take the Eucharistic Miracle at Lanciano: During Holy Mass in the eight century, after the two-fold consecration, the host was changed into live Flesh and the wine was changed into live Blood, which coagulated into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size. This still the case after 12 centuries.In the 1970s and 1980s Prof. Odoardo Linoli, Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy and Prof. Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena have discovered that the flesh is true flesh and the blood is real blood. The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin).Are you saying that the scientists were wrong? Finally you ask me why God does not prevent all natural disasters. I am not God. I do not set myself up to think I know the mind of God.However in relation to the tsunami in S E Asia man himself is responsible for the deaths. Building has been allowed in low lying areas adjacent to the sea. Naturally there will be heavy loss of life if there is a tsunami. Similarly when the next huge earthquake occurs along the San Andreas Fault in California there may be massive loss of life because of mans folly. Why build in an area where a big natural disaster is inevitable.Similarly with Aids and sexually transmitted diseases: Man is the author of his own misfortune because he chooses to ignore the Law of God and misbehaves. You cant blame God for man's folly. God gives us free will.It is logical to expect that God would work a Eucharistic Miracle where a priest would have doubts about the Consecration.There is an interesting article here Soldier saved by rosary - just like his great-grandfather. PS The Rosary is a Catholic prayer said on a Rosary Beads.I think it is foolish to rule out God.

So let me get this right... If I went to a primary school and shot every single child in there, then went home or to a church and confessed my sins and 'repented', I would be allowed into Heaven? That Heaven will be a place full of liars, sickos, cheats, hipocrites and peodophiles. Keep your fucking heaven.

If everyone went by the Bible no one on earth would have hands, arms, eyeballs and the evil laws of Christianity would be the most barbaric the world has ever seen. Even if someone eats an oyster they are doomed to HELL according to Leviticus. It amazes me that 99.99999999% of supposed christians don't even read the Bible. They sit for an hour a week & listen to a preacher give HIS interpretation of a line or paragraph. All religions are born out of ignorance and superstition and when man evolves more religion will be ancient history. Good riddance because it is the source of virtually all carnage and deaths on earth. If you're religious I have oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona.

Which of those is true? Hint: they can't both be as they are mutually contradictory.

If God has always known what you'll have for breakfast tomorrow, you can't chose something else or God will have been wrong. If all your decision have been known about for ever, you have no free will.

Sorry about the simple logic which destroys your God of Low Standards and which requires you to hold two mutually contradictory views simultaneously because normal logic fails abysmally.

I'm not at all surprised to see that your 'faith' made you too afraid to read On Omniscience And Free Will. It must be really difficult having to protect a delusion you know to be false by closing your eyes, blocking your ears and hoping the nasty facts will go away.

BTW, that article you linked to was gibberish of course and had the standard of logic one might expect of a nine year-old, or a religious fundamentalist.

The author seemed to think that 'logic' involves making unsupported assertions and denying simple truisms, and that, in some unexplained magical way, gods can know what you're going to decide with absolute inerrant certainties but you can decide something else and the gods' absolute inerrant certainties will not have been wrong.

I suspect a private meaning of the words, 'know' and 'wrong' were having to be used. I see he degenerated into quoting random Bible passages towards the end - a sure-fire way to tell that the author has run out of ideas and is having to appeal to an assumed authority.

The fact that God being God can see in advance how we will act in a given situation does not invalidate the belief that we have free will. He has given us free will. We are free to accept his teachings or reject them. He has provided the Ten Commandments as our road map. If we die in mortal sin we are damned. We damn ourselves by our actions. God does not damn us. We have free will to damn ourselves if we wish. He has told us in advance of the consequences of sin. We damn or save ourselves by our actions. I am not the author of the above article. I have also read your article. I disagree with your thesis. A cursory look at the complexity and vastness of the universe indicates that it is the work of a mastermind-God. It could not all have happened by chance. Just look at the solar system and the regularity of movement of the planets around the sun. This could not have happened by chance. It’s the work of a master orchestrator-God. Prudence dictates that we work on the assumption that there is a God. Why take the chance that there is no God?

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